In summary, modern mainstream creatives prefer villains to heroes
because villains have fewer constraints on their behavior, allowing them
to take whatever actions they want, irrespective of whether such
actions are moral. By contrast, heroes are constrained by their virtues
and have to take action while maintaining virtue, for if they break
those virtues, they can easily slide into self-indulgence, and
ultimately, villainy. While there’s substantially more in the video,
this is the most important point he makes.
But what do superheroes and supervillains have to do with romance? Everything.
Just as modern creatives shun the hero and embrace the villain
because the villain is more free, they shun the devoted wife or
girlfriend for similar reasons. If the female must emotionally satisfy
her boyfriend, this limits her behavior; she is not free to do whatever
she pleases, since like the hero and his virtue, she has her own
virtue to uphold, which she values more than total freedom. Not for
nothing is the female protagonist of a romance called the “heroine.”
With modern storytelling, to use Anita Blake once more, a character is looked down upon if they have ethics and morals so they get ran through the grinder and go from Urban Fantasy to Erotica, totally derailing characters and settings in the process.
The "In Love with the Freedom of the Villain" POV has diluted books. Imho. We have to fight cynicism.
Far too many people still look at the dirt and that's all they see.
If there's to be more intimate scenes I prefer a more sensual build up rather than IKEA "ON the Page" Porn. Older romances had that. You didn't have to go into tons of detail. Plus they had more characters that were monogamous then.
Do we need Superman type Aspirational Heroes? Yes, we most certainly do. It's easy to deconstruct and pull people through the mud. Take another path. Make Aspirational Great Again 2020.
I'm no Stephen King or JK Rowling but I want to leave a legacy of Aspirational Superhero Space Opera behind and that's what I'm gonna do. All I have to do is be me. I don't have to be anything else.
I will not support Marvel and DC for the foreseeable future. If I happen upon some used stuff at Ollies or some old classics in the "for sale" bin at the LCS, ill take a gander.
They assisted with the situation most shops find themselves in. Comic collecting, in terms of making some sort of prospector's market score, doesn't work. The booming days of "OH yes! This Action Comics 1 is gonna fund college." is long past.
That mindset made shops buy pounds upon pounds of drivel like American Chavez, Squirrel Girl, Female Furies et all. All so some sort of variant cover could be ordered by stores. If anything, comic pros should give away variant covers to their favorite shops. As a thank you and good will. Some have done things like this but if the big two of this industry really cared, they wouldn't have put shops in this position anyway.
Corporations only care about IPs. Not the mediums they work in. As long as the bottom line is met, they don't care what really happens with these legacies or what these comics stand for.
I will not buy the 10% that meets the requirements for fun entertainment because to me that will still fund the excess 80-90% crap flooding the Western Comic Market. Manga is murdering us. And at this point, rightfully so. Modern Comics is a dumpster fire.
They hate their main consumer base: White Men. 25-55 at this point.
Story and World Building at the Big Two is thrown under the bus for "THE NEXT HOT THING/EVENT/WTF WHO CARES BLING BLING" I can pick up an old set of stuff from my dad's collection and just enjoy them. I know all the characters there. My Superman is there. Gold/Silver Age et all. Sure, the super pets are there too but at this point, I'd take them over anything put out by DC nowadays. To me, the last gasp of Superman was the Rebirth Run. Nothing else exists at this point.
Diamond should have died back in the 90s.
When indie makers offer you an old school adventure, take them up on the offer, otherwise all DC and Marvel will do is crank out the same drivel and hang on for dear life with the top people that will get them a trickle of the revenue they used to get in the 80s.
SO much stuff I loved is a rotted husk of its former self. This whole crisis was the final part that broke the Diamond's back.
The real comic heroes of this crisis: Regular Stores offering to go Above the Call to give their patrons the best service they can. The big two: Silence. And that was deafening in those opening hours. All the LCSs and small presses were doing their best to "Gondor Calls for Aid" while Marvel and DC sat there with their thumbs up their butts. FUCK YOU.
I will not reward sludge. Because under those bits that are still worth while, you are still funding crap, no matter how much cream they spread over it. If that makes me bitter in peoples eyes? So be it. Ill still watch comic book youtube, to see how things are going but this reader is going off on a different kind of adventure. TO find the heroes and heroines of yesteryear.
Because I want to look up into the sky. And not look back.
Unlike me, who jumped ship after number 7, then came back for a moment because people said some of the old form Anita was in Obsidian Butterfly , this person stayed until 17. Yea, god...and apparently its gotten worse since.
From the Wiki, goddamn. Her vacuum super black-hole vagina has claimed more people. She made these characters into simps even before I learned what that meant. ALL HAIL THE HYPNOBITCHSUE! More of a Vampire then her actual vampires now. I have seen the horror. Mainly because ever so often Id read a bit at the brick and mortar store. I wanted her to get eaten by gators when they investigated the snake people in fl for about 20-40 pages. Rest was: I GOTTA TAKE CARE OF MY SIMPS! Male and female ones. There is no difference now, only Anita.
Jean-Claude (Fiance/lover) Richard Zeeman (ex-fiance ) THIS ONE WAS BASED OFF HUBBY 1 IRL. Asher (lover) (BECAME A BUTT MONKEY CHARACTER FOR LKH to ABUSE EVEN MORE! The put on the narrative bus with Richard. So LKH can shit on them both. Because they dont worship at the altar of Sex Dues Machina. AKA what the frack did she call it ardeur? Its basically like getting an OVER 9000 level Upgrade but you have to have more sex then Zeus to sate it. Nathaniel Graison (lover/Leopard to call) Micah Callahan (lover/Nimir-Raj) THIS ONE IS BASED OFF HER FANCLUB PRES TURNED HUBBY #2. Damian (vampire servant) Jason Schuyler (Wolf to call) Crispin (White Tiger to call) Domino (Black Tiger to call) (deceased) Jade - Yiyú (Black Tiger to call/First Female Lover) Cynric (Blue Tiger to call) Mephistopheles (Gold Tiger to call) Alex (Red Tiger to call) Nicky (Bride/Lion) Rodrigo (Bride/Leopard) (deceased) Rodina (Bride/Leopard) Ru (Bride/Leopard)
Book 1-4 Anita would have put current Anita down as a total and complete monster needing of cleansing.
Early Anita was fairly serious about her faith. Had good characteristics that were pretty in line with common virtuous things like humility and perseverance. She cared about innocents. That Anita would have never slept with Nathaniel, who was an abused male stripper when she first met him and underaged. Dear god LKH, you did a complete cluster fuck on your whole series. Because you are PANSEXUAL IRL now you gotta make your characters just like you? Dear god. After a point Anita is basically LKH but in much muuuuch better shape.
Most of the fanbase that left the series at some point will remark that its actually called Anita Blake: Vampire Humper. I broke away before NiC: Here, the List of Travesty:
Let's see: Even though I love Honor Harrington, at least Mr. Weber knew she needed a stopping point to hand off the torch.
FL, you had one job in Book 26, one job! LET SOME GATORS eat her.
I mean, look how big this fucking thing is:
This entry has over 500 comments. I really feel for everyone, its like Star Wars turned Disney Wars all over again: Here: Abandon Ship!
This lady speaks the Tru Tru:(But I disagree with the Porn part, it also became terribad because of her "erotica" infusion.)
Watch Anita FUCK ANYTHING THAT HAS A PULSE!
Consent? Anita doesn't know what that means anymore.
Not gay for her, THE PLOT will make all "lovers" compliant. Even other wahmen.
Gay men not interested? the PLOT will make it so Warp Factor "MUH QWEEN" Anita. Unless you are Asher and got put on the "YOU DISOBEYED" bus of Narrative "Who the frack cares about you now."
Richard is the only sane one and that's cause he embodies the part that LKH wants to forget.
Everyone is Anita's personal Emotional Rag or Purse Puppy.
She hates blondes. Hmmm so much projection in this series. Even in the earlier books.
For me, ok, there can be Romance, Flirting whatnot, even sexual tension. What LKH did was a crime against everything romantic and sexy.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first few books. Then the gradual slide into mediocrity became an avalanche of shit.
And it's not because Hamilton started writing porn disguised as vampire fiction.
It's
because the books no longer have plots. So little action happens it's
maddening. And as an added bonus, because Hamilton's porn is AWFUL, it's
so poorly written it will make you laugh out loud.
What
used to be a series about a Christian vampire hunter/detective with a
rigid moral compass and was a total prude became a series about how hard
it is to be the only woman worth having and how to manage the feelings
of your harem, who act like a bunch of man-children. She went from a
character who struggled to save the day, to a person with god-like
powers who can overcome anything. Nothing can threaten her. The only
tension in the novels now is between her multiple sulky boyfriends
fighting over her.
Anita used to
see life through the lens of human good, vampire bad. She had a personal
relationship with God, she had doubts about herself, and she sure as
hell was not going to be friends, let alone lovers, with the undead.
And yet, it happens.
She
is subtly manipulated into viewing the undead as people, and she loses
her prudishness in a series of orgies that get more and more outrageous.
(It's not because she's having lots of sex that makes it bad. It's
because the sex parties for this prudish character are so unbelievable
AND so terribly written.) Also very little explanation is giving into
WHY Anita's thinking gradually changes about treating vampires as
people. Once the "ardueur" plot device is introduced, you can kiss any
sense of rationality out the window.
Contrast
back to the first few books. She is a necromancer especially gifted at
raising the dead and executing vampires, but there is sexual tension
between her and a vampire. That is a huge moral struggle for her because
she is a Christian and believes that vampires have no souls. They are
evil. She does not WANT to date one, she does not want to have sex with
one. And yet, ever so slowly, a beautiful vampire who is very
politically savvy manipulates her into seeing him as an ally, a friend,
and eventually a lover.
It was
this gradual shift in her moral compass and her struggle with herself,
plus the really cool detective stories, that was so gripping. There were
some really cool ideas about the supernatural!
And then it basically all got thrown out the window.
The
Were animal societies and their politics are so, so boring. Spare me
the were leopards, SO dull. Once she got to were tigers, red tigers,
white tigers, BLUE tigers, it was beyond redemption. Sadly the few male
characters who hadn't had sex with Anita basically fall into her vagina
of doom and become her lovers (when her regular lovers aren't available)
and it's just so ridiculous. The strong male characters become pale
shadows of their former selves.
You get to the end of a book where 90% of it was poorly written sex and ask yourself "what actually HAPPENED in this book?"
Where Dresden gets lots of good comics and even a tv show: This is what Anita got, Comicbook Fanfiction. Her books, even the early ones weren't particularly HIGH level but they were decent popcorn. Simple entertainment. Her first husband probably saved us from even more cringe stuff. He was her initial beta reader way back when.
When the spoofs of reviews are better then the source. Yup. Marvel has been in the cringe bucket for a while now. DC joined in. Complete with brain dead but that's another rant for another time.
MY GOD! Thats not the HOOVER DAMN! THAT'S ANITA's ORGASM! RUN AWAY!
My boy toys so horny, me like them long time and girth. Should I even put a passage in.....lord give me caffeine.
ALL WAHMEN BUT ANITA SUCK ASS!
I got a scan of the sample, no way I am giving this thing money. Ultimate in Navel Gazing, thy name is Whore. She's a physical one, emotional one, a vapid one, and everything I hate in asshole characters. There's a decent way to do sassy and then there's Anita. Don't be her.
A List:
Dont need anyone but myself unless I need Validation.
Acting like a 15 year old when this character is supposed to be near or at 30 now.
Sex for no reason. Its mechanical. No emotion to it. Please insert pole and hole here.
She gave Anita a literal sex Fu machina to make that the plot instead of an actual mystery.
Anita has no hope.
She a bitch.
She a ho.
Police and or AUTHORITY! suck besides the ones who believe in SAINT BRAVO INDIA TANGO CHARLIE HOTEL Anita.
She loves no one but herself. She pretends to care about others as long as her needs are met.
This is the series of THOTS and Simps. Esp after book 9. I think the big breakdown started happening in the Killing Dance personally.
Anita Blake influenced stuff like this. 40 year old cat ladies who write "love triangles." And female MC's who only think of themselves. She started an avalanche of crap. Cause the actual series started in the early 90s. So many creatives in Marvel and DC are in that age group to have been affected by all this shit. Well, the ones they hire from YA land that is.
For LKH case, this should be the DE-EVLOUTION of the Urban Fantasy Protag. Why is she even on this panel? She's the Brian Micheal Bendis of Book Writing.
I know my break up with this series was akin to what happened with Disney Wars Sequel Trilogy or even Current Superman but I had no words for this at the time. She basically shot the old Anita into the sun because this whole series was very much therapy the whole time for her and I think the first husband kept her in check in some ways. Along with some editors at the time. She changed publishing houses part way through the series. Books 1- 9 by ACE, then the rest by BERKLEY and that's where the ultimate train wreak started. Number 10: NiC aka Even Zapp Branigan wouldn't tap that.
LKH is the reason why I have a deep abiding mistrust of PARANORMAL anything. She was Rian Johnson before he was popular for subverting things.
THIS HOUSE IS CLEAN!
I would go on further but some are on phones. I feel much better now.
Hell, this one is better written sensual book stuff: LKH needs to take notes. And this one I consider mindless entertainment, which isnt bad, just popcorn. Messenger that is.
